When
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama started campaigning for the White House in
December, 2007, he promised the voters two things. Universally, he promised
change. He never specified what that promised change was going to be,
or who would benefit from it. But change of any type seemed to be good
enough for an electorate—Democrats and Republicans alike—since
everyone seemed to be tired of eight years of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney. Second, when he addressed the 99th Annual Conference of NAACP
on July 14, 2008 Obama told the assembled audience: "Social Justice
is not enough. It matters little if you have the right to sit at the
lunch counter if you can't afford the lunch. But the Supreme Court never
ventured into the issue of redistribution of wealth and...[the]...issue
of political and economic justice in this society...[T]he Supreme Court
interpreted in the same way that the Constitution is a charter of negative
liberties. It says what the States can't do for you. It says what the
federal government can't do to you. But it doesn't say what the federal
government or State government must do on your behalf." Obama then
promised to return to the NAACP's 100th Anniversary Conference to declare
that the redistribution of wealth was taking place.

I'm
not quite sure the NAACP is particularly pleased with the type of the
redistribution that has taken place thus far since that's not exactly
what they had in mind when Candidate Obama talked about sitting at the
lunch counter but not having the price of a meal. The redistribution
they had in mind would be more like robbing the taxpayers to provide
affluence to the have-nots—particularly the have-nots whose ancestors
may have been slaves.

Instead,
the first act of Obama's "change," like the final curtain
call of Bush-43's low-rated 8-year run of The Court Jestor, opened the
door at the US Treasury and invited the US auto industry to drive-through
and pick up a $25 billion low-interest loan, followed by the corporate
begfest in which the Big Three returned for an additional $25 billion
"stimulus" to keep them from going bankrupt.

In
the end, Congress shelled out $15 billion more for a total of $40 billion.
Pocket change. From our pockets to the pockets of the princes of industry
and the barons of banking. Congress, acting like Robin Hood, used a
reverse form of theft with their accomplices in the banking community
who played the role of the Merry Men, robbing the poor to benefit the
rich. Obama added a new dimension to the concept of corporate welfare
by demanding partial ownership (i.e., nationalization) of those corporations
that accepted any stimulus money (i.e., corporate welfare). In the case
of the banks who received taxpayer money, Obama forced them to collateralize
their "loans" with nonvoting high yield preferred stock.

The
Treasury is now demanding that the banks who received the bailout money
exchange the preferred stock they put up as collateral for voting shares.
Obama wants a voice in the management of the nation's 19 largest banks.
The reason? Obama personally wants to control who sits on the boards
of those banks. Why should that be important to him? Because the bankers
and the politicians control the price of everything. During the turbulent
1920s joblessness in Germany grew from 2.25 million in 1930 to 6 million
in 1932. The value of the mark collapsed. In 1918 a pound of potatoes
in Germany cost 1/8th of a Mark. In Nov. 1923 that same pound of potatoes
cost 50 billion Marks. One egg that cost 1/4th of a Mark in 1918 cost
80 billion Marks in 1923. Butter was a luxury that only the rich could
afford in 1923. One pound of butter cost 3 Marks in 1918. It took a
wheelbarrow containing 6 trillion Marks to buy a pound of butter in
Nov., 1923.

The
American banking system, which managed to weather Obama's first tsunami—an
attempt on his part to wrest managerial control of the banks from the
bankers by insisting they switch the high dividend-yield, nonvoting
preferred stock they pledged as collateral for the bailout loans into
common stock which pays no dividends but is voting stock. With the shares
the government "owns" until the loans are repaid, they will
virtually control who sits on the boards of these banks.

On
Thursday, May 7, the Treasury announced the results of the government's
hypothetical stress test on the financial well-being of the nation's
19 largest commercial banks. All of them, according to the government,
will need billions of additional dollars of funding in the first couple
years of the next decade if economic conditions worsen in the United
States. In their hypothetical, the government predicted a 25% credit
card default rate when the worst five year credit default rate (during
the Carter Era) was 5%. Clearly, the government's worse case scenario
was structured to make all of these banks appear to be in much worse
shape than they actually are. And the banks are troubled by what he's
doing. Increasingly, the bankers are beginning to fear Obama. The reason?
It appears that Obama is determined to coerce the bankers into signing
on to the his economic agenda—whatever it is. But, when the White
House begins to threaten the bankers who helped put him in office, it
should be starting to dawn on the working class voters that it won't
be good for them.

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In
1921, former army corporal, political opportunist and wallpaper hanger
Adolph Hitler was known only by a handful of political dissidents in
Austria. Less than 3% of the disgruntled voters in 1928 voted for the
National Socialist Party in Germany. No one viewed Hitler as anyone
who could solve the difficult economic issues of the day. And, that
was after seven years of what was almost blitzkreg-level propagandizing
by the Nazis. Hitler's only followers came from the far right in Germany
and Austria. Only those who felt completely disenfranchised and utterly
disillusioned by the Weimar Republic chose to follow Hitler, believing
his promise of change, but never questioning what types of change he
would make. Like the American far right today, Hitler exploited the
backward-looking ultra-conservatism of a bygone era with that magic
word—"change." Those who followed Hitler, like the far
left that follows socialist Obama, saw and heard what they wanted to
see and hear in the messianic message of der Fuehrer. Change meant whatever
each starry-eyed follower wanted it to mean.

After
struggling for political power as an insignificant fringe party candidate
in the turbulent '20s, Hitler realized that to wrest power from the
rich gentry, he needed the secure the support of those he intended to
overthrow. Particularly the bankers and the industrialists who controlled
both money and jobs. Hitler, like Obama, came to power in turbulent
times (even though the crisis that brought Obama to power was contrived
by greedy, graft-infected politicians, industrialists and bankers for
the express purpose of toppling not only a nation but the monetary systems
of the world's failing nation states). But unlike Obama who has a Congressional
super majority at his beck-and-call, Hitler's Nazi Party was a minority
in the Reichstag. But, he had a plan how to parlay his seat in the Reichstag
to the presidency of Germany. Banker Hjalmar Schacht who, as Germany's
Commissioner of Currency was tasked, in 1923 with creating a solvent
new currency to replace the Reichsmark that was being decimated by the
hyperinflation that destroyed the German economy.

Schacht,
believed to be the best monetary mind in Germany, wanted to head the
Reichsbank. However, during World War I, as the Army's banking commissioner
for occupied Belgium, Schacht funneled Belgium notes of remittance worth
500 million francs to his former employer, the Dresdner Bank. Gen. Ludwig
von Lumm fired him and, when the job as head of the Reichsbank opened
in 1923, von Lumm killed Schacht's chances of getting it. Hitler promised
Schacht the job if he became President of Germany. Schacht became Hitler's
money bagman, leading other bankers and their money to the Nazis. One
by one, Germany's most important banking families threw their support
behind Hitler. Next came the industrialists. (Schacht was tried for
war crimes in Nuremberg in 1946 but his guilt was not established beyond
a reasonable doubt and he was not convicted of war crimes. Photo of
Schacht [above] was taken during the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal.)

Those
who are watching close enough cannot fail to see the historic parallel.
When Obama decided to coalesce with the leaders of the failing US auto
industry—the only group desperate enough to take taxpayer money
with strings of steel they would never be able to break, he did what
Hitler did when he made his historic deal with Georg von Schnitzler,
an ambitious member of I.G. Farben's board of directors. Schnitzler
became the proverbial scapegoat that led other German industrialists
into the Nazi fold. Under Hitler, Schnitzler quickly became CEO of Farben
and was among the first to greedily exploit the human capital in the
concentration camps. (Schnitzler, industrialists Otto Wolf, August Rosterg,
and Albert Voegler of United Steel Works, were among the early industrialists
that supported Hitler with their checkbooks—and their influence.
They were among 22 industrialists who faced war crimes charges for using
the slave labor in the concentration camps.) Schnitzler, who became
the Third Reich's Economic Minister, was an SA officer and Nazi Party
official. Yet, he served only 2.5 years of his five year prison sentence
at the end of the war. Hitler could not have achieved absolute, dictatorial
power in Germany without the help and influence of the industrialists
and bankers. Think about that when you watch the White House waltz with
the bankers and industrialists. When government sticks its authoritarian
hand into the free enterprise system, expect a recession, a depression...or
worse.

Obama
has already begun to move in that direction. In the privacy of the Oval
Office Obama has not hesitated to threaten to destroy the careers of
the bankers and auto industry executives who interfere with the White
House's plans for those who accepted bailout money. Tom Lauria, a lawyer
for one of the hedge fund creditors of Chrysler, Perella Weinburg, told
ABC News that Steve Rattner, the head of Obama's auto industry task
force threatened to destroy the career of his client, an investment
banker who opposed writing off most of Chrysler's debt. When the story
broke, the White House denied it. On the talk show circuit, Lauria insisted
that Rattner called Weinburg and warned him that if he did not lower
his expectations of what his company was entitled to expect from a bankrupt
Chrysler, the White House Press Corps would destroy him—and his
bank. When Rattner hung up, Weinburg backed off his initial demands
that Chrysler pay its debt to his company, leaving his lawyer with egg
on his face. The law firms used by America's investment bankers are
not loose cannons who go on political talk shows and make spurious statements
about the White House.

Mistakes
like that are career-enders. Why is the White House using Gestapo tactics?
First, Obama promised the United Auto Workers controlling interest in
Chrysler and GM. Even though the union denies it, they will get a 55%
stake in Chrysler including a seat on the restructured company. Control
of 55% of the voting stock allows the UAW to pick the officers of the
company. If rank and file UAW members feel good about this scenario,
they need to rethink what is about to happen. Their advocates for increased
wages and benefits will have become the adversary in the negotiations
for increased benefits demands.

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The
UAW and the other unions that represent GM employees around the world
will get 39% of the stock of General Motors. In both auto companies,
the unions will partner with management. Rhetoric aside, even if it
looks like a sweetheart deal to rank and file union members today, ultimately,
the only adversary left the corporate partnership of labor and management
to fight will be the workers. Clearly, this deal happens only if the
bankruptcy court agrees. And, that will only happen if the auto industry
creditors agree. For part two click below.

Jon Christian Ryter is the pseudonym of a
former newspaper reporter with the Parkersburg, WV Sentinel. He authored
a syndicated newspaper column, Answers From The Bible, from the mid-1970s
until 1985. Answers From The Bible was read weekly in many suburban
markets in the United States.

Today, Jon is an advertising
executive with the Washington Times. His website, www.jonchristianryter.com
has helped him establish a network of mid-to senior-level Washington
insiders who now provide him with a steady stream of material for use
both in his books and in the investigative reports that are found on
his website.

Sadly, when America
and its citizen warriors are effectively disarmed, the walls of national
sovereignty will fall like children's building blocks all around the globe,
and a one world economic, political and religious system will rise from
the rubble. And the souls of the martyrs of America's past will cry out
in anguish.